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But by this time I was acutely conscious of the gap between law and justice. I knew that the letter of the law was not as important as who held the power in any real-life situation.

Howard Zinn

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Howard Zinn
Age: 87 †
Born: 1922
Born: August 24
Died: 2010
Died: January 27
Film Director
Historian
Historian Of The Modern Age
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Labor Historian
Pacifist
Peace Activist
Playwright
Brooklyn
New York
Time
Conscious
Life
Knew
Justice
Situation
Acutely
Law
Gaps
Power
Letter
Real
Held
Important
Letters

More quotes by Howard Zinn

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Diverse audiences can be just as misled as homogenous audiences.
Howard Zinn
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In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.
Howard Zinn
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When you fight a war against a tyrant, who do you kill? You kill the victims of the tyrant.
Howard Zinn
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I will try not to overlook the cruelties that victims inflict on one another as they are jammed together in the boxcars of the system. I don’t want to romanticize them. But I do remember (in rough paraphrase) a statement I once read: “The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.
Howard Zinn
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The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance of their enemies, but the complacency of their friends, are precious catalysts for change.
Howard Zinn
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[W]e're taught that if one person kills another person, that is murder but if a government kills a hundred thousand persons, that is patriotism.
Howard Zinn
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Use the Day of Atonement not to pray for the dead but to act for the living, to rescue those about to die.
Howard Zinn
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The Roman Empire came to an end, but the Roman people didn't come to an end, so I see the American Empire coming to an end just as other empires have come to an end.
Howard Zinn
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The cry of the poor is is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.
Howard Zinn
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I don't think we can depend on Congress. In the American political system - we have been brought up to believe that the American political system works beautifully it is democratic Congress represents us the President is elected, he represents us - it doesn't work that way.
Howard Zinn
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Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
Howard Zinn
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Richard Nixon was not the lesser evil, he was the greater evil, but in his administration the war was finally brought to an end, because he had to deal with the power of the anti-war movement as well as the power of the Vietnamese movement. I will vote, but always with a caution that voting is not crucial, and organizing is the important thing.
Howard Zinn
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Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.
Howard Zinn
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What we have is a more sophisticated form of imperialism, which is economic. But lurking in the background, always ready to go, is an armed force.
Howard Zinn
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There was something horrifying in the realization that, in this twenty-first century of what we call 'civilization,' we have carved up what we claim is one world into 200 artificially created entities we call 'nations' and armed to apprehend or kill anyone who crosses a boundary.
Howard Zinn
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George Orwell said, Whoever controls the past controls the future, by which he meant that history is incredibly important in shaping the world view of the next generation of people.
Howard Zinn
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I do take the threat of terrorism seriously. You cannot eliminate that threat or diminish that threat by bombing a country.
Howard Zinn
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If you join a fight for social justice you may win or lose, but just by being part of the struggle, you win, and your life will be better for it.
Howard Zinn
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Music can be a distraction and an escape. Sometimes a welcome escape. You need it. But music can also serve a very important social function because music can do things that mere prose, mere ordinary political agitation can't do.
Howard Zinn
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We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism....
Howard Zinn